GIG: OLIVER MANN
Against all expectations, singer-songwriter Oliver Mann found himself studying opera. “It’s better than most of the homogeneous trash you hear on the FM radios,” he says – a fitting comment, considering his upcoming gig is part of the 2ser Turns 30 month-long celebration – itself a radio station with a knack for spying heterogeneous treasure with the eye of a magpie. Mann acknowledges that community stations are incredibly important to him, being the only ones – as yet – to spin his stuff. This is despite widespread and impassioned praise – Bernard Zuel says he’ll have you, “Smiling at the audacity”; “Thoughtful, innovative, challenging and enjoyable,” according to Mess+Noise’s Trevor Block; his album The Possum Wakes at Night declared, “One of the most weirdest and most beautiful … this year” by our own Aidan Roberts. For his new release, Tin Pan, Mann plumbs the melancholic depths of Baroque operatic piece Dido’s Lament. Produced by Stereolab’s Andy Ramsay, it is the notefinder in his Rock n Roll 7” series. Supported by Sailor Days and The Maple Trail (both solo), the performance is to take place in Paddington Church where, “the air buoys the music and it’s lighter on the ear.” Dido and Aeneas urges you to, “Take a boozy short leave of your nymphs on the shore, and silence their mourning with vows of returning, though never intending to visit them more.” So leave the Mann-less land and take a boozy, beautiful short leave Saturday Oct 10, never to return to those beckoning nymphs of mainstream radio.
Sat Oct 10, Paddington Church, 395 Oxford St, $8 on the door, 2ser.com/30
